On vulgar, irrational, deceitful misinformation campaigns

This, from Jon Stewart talking about Fox News, put me in mind of some of the oily local propagandists and liars who demonstrate a similar nasty, negative, fixation with ‘the left’ and reflexively spin their personal attack lines against public and private figures who represent it …

After showing a montage of Fox clips, Stewart asked “If we caught Charlie Manson, who gives a sh*t who gets the collar?” He continued: “And I get that Fox opposes a Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless and irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic succubus-like existence.”

I don’t buy the ‘all’s fair in love and war’ approach some take to political discourse.

I’ve observed some who see themselves as ‘activists’ — and seem to think their sectarianism excuses them jettisoning their integrity. They are so persistently untruthful that I have learned to discount anything they say. Their commitment to honesty — telling the truth — seems to be in the dustbin.

Sacrificing one’s truthfulness and accuracy for transitory political point-scoring seems a dud transaction. A tendency to mislead and dissemble, in my view, disqualifies a ‘commentator’ — whether their allegiances are disclosed or not.

It costs them my respect, no matter how ‘influential’ they think they are.